Bushmen religion 
The most important southern Bushmen spiritual being
was /Kaggen, the trickster-deity. He created many things,
and appears in numerous myths where he can be foolish
or wise, tiresome or helpful.
The word '/Kaggen' can be translated as 'mantis', this
lead to the belief that the Bushmen worshipped the praying
mantis. However, /Kaggen neither is nor is not a praying
mantis: the mantis is only one of his manifestations.
He can also turn into an eland, a hare, a snake or a
vulture; he can assume many forms.
When he is not in one of his animal forms, /Kaggen lives
his life of an ordinary Bushman, hunting, fighting and
getting into scraps.
The Bushmen's beliefs go beyond that. The eland is their
most spiritual animal and appears in four rituals: boys'
first kill, girls' puberty, marriage and trance dance.
- A ritual is held where the boy is told how to track
an eland and how the eland will fall once shot with
an arrow.
He becomes an adult when he kills his first large
antelope, preferably an eland. The eland is skinned
and the fat from the elands' throat and collar bone
is made into a broth. This broth has great potency.
- In the girls' puberty rituals, a young girl is isolated
in her hut at her first menstruation. The women of
the tribe perform the Eland Bull Dance where they
imitate the mating behaviour of the eland cows. A
man will play the part of the eland bull, usually
with horns on his head.
This ritual will keep the girl beautiful, free from
hunger and thirst and peaceful.
- As part of the marriage ritual, the man gives the
fat from the elands' heart to the girls' parents.
At a later stage the girl is anointed with eland fat.
- In the trance dance, the eland is considered the
most potent of all animals, and the shamans aspire
to possess eland potency.
The Bushmen believed that the eland was /Kaggen's favourite
animal.
The modern Bushmen of the Kalahari believe in two gods:
one who lives in the east and one from the west. Like
the southern Bushmen they believe in spirits of the
dead, but not as part of ancestor worship. The spirits
are only vaguely identified and are thought to bring
sickness and death.
'Medicine People' or shamans protect everyone from
these spirits and sickness.
A shaman is someone who enters a trance in order to
heal people, protect them from evil spirits and sickness,
foretell the future, control the weather, ensure good
hunting and generally try to look after the well being
of their group. See Shamans
and medicine people.
An understanding of their religion and trance dances
is vitally important to understand why they painted
on rocks and later on canvas.
